Waves, Ice, Penguins – Scientists from Thuringia Travel to Antarctica

Topic: Waves, Ice, Penguins – Thuringian scientists travel to Antarctica

Speaker: Osama Mustafa, Thuringian Institute for Sustainability and Climate Protection, Jena

Time: Friday, 30 October 2026, 3.00 pm

Venue: TU Ilmenau,Faraday Lecture Theatre, Weimarer Straße 32, access via Prof. Schmidt-Straße

Admission: 5 euros

With 14 people on board, the ‘Malizia Explorer’ – a yacht just 26 metres long owned by the well-known German professional sailor Boris Herrmann – set sail from the southern tip of South America in November 2025. Their destination: the Danger Islands, an archipelago of seven small islands in the virtually unexplored wilderness of Antarctica. Scientists from Jena at the Thuringian Institute for Sustainability and Climate Protection have already visited Antarctica on several occasions, using a wide variety of transport. But a sailing boat? Can that even work? They will have to cross the infamous Drake Passage – perhaps the wildest sea on Earth – whilst in Antarctica, unpredictable ice lies in wait. 

Why, then, this ambitious polar expedition? For the scientists at the Thuringian Institute for Sustainability and Climate Protection – an interdisciplinary consultancy and planning firm at the interface of climate, the environment and urban/spatial development – the primary aim is to protect a vast penguin colony. Their scientific director, Osama Mustafa, will be speaking at the TU Ilmenau Citizens’ Campus about the background to the expedition, conditions on board and how the expedition is progressing.